Momma K’s eyes were cold for a long moment. Then they cleared. “I can see that taking orders is going to take some getting used to. Yes, it’s fair. Perhaps you are the king who can do this after all. Your Majesty, I swear my fealty to you.” She knelt gracefully and touched his foot.
“Gwinvere Kirena, I hereby establish House Kirena, peers among the great houses of the realm. I grant to you and your house in perpetuity the lands stretching from the Smugglers’ Archipelago in the west to the Wy River in the east, and from the boundaries of Havermere in the north to Ceuran border in the south. Rise, Duchess Kirena.”
She stood. “Your Majesty, there is one more thing. Yesterday I received confirmation of an earlier report that I hadn’t believed. In each case, my sources had nothing to gain by lying. Both have been trustworthy in the past. I don’t know how this is possible, but I believe it is true. I didn’t want to tell you before we concluded our own negotiations because I didn’t want you to think I was trying to influence them.”
“That’s a lot of hedging. What is it?” Logan asked.
“Your wife didn’t die in the coup, Your Majesty. Jenine’s in Khalidor. She’s alive.”
* * *
Some time after dark, the wheel stopped turning. Kylar jerked his head up. He blinked through the river water coursing from his hair and looked around. Blinking still hurt, but he could make out shapes now with the eye that had been blinded in the morning.
A young man in armor stood before him. Obviously, he was one of Logan’s bodyguards. “I was given a message, Sir Kagé,” he said. “Aristarchos is healthy and safe at home now with his wife and children. The Society wishes to thank you and hopes that stopping the wheel for a few hours is a small repayment.” He glanced up one of the bridges.
Through the darkness, Kylar saw a Ladeshian man he’d never met. The man raised his hand in greeting, though in the darkness, no one but Kylar could have seen him. Then the Ladeshian walked away. So Aristarchos ban Ebron had survived his addiction. Kylar hadn’t known he had a family. He wondered what Aristarchos’s wife thought when her beautiful husband came back with blackened and missing teeth, his looks and pride sacrificed to a cause she couldn’t understand. The Society thanked Kylar?
“We can only stop the wheel until dawn, Sir Kagé. I’m sorry.”
But Kylar barely heard him. He unclenched his bloody hands from the knife-edged grips and let the belt and the ankle straps hold his weight. His head sunk to his chest.
“Kylar?” Vi asked. They were in a little room with two beds, a basin, and a small chest at the foot of each bed. A small figure was asleep on one bed, and Vi was propped up on one hand in the other. She looked worse than Kylar had ever seen her. Her eyes were red and puffy, her face blotchy, nose runny, and handkerchiefs wadded in her hands. “Gods, what have they done to you?”
He looked at the sleeping figure on the other bed and shuffled over to her. “Uly,” he said. “God, she’s getting big. Uly?”
“She can’t hear us,” Vi said. “We’re not really here. Come, sit down.”
Kylar sat with difficulty. He smiled wanly. “Uly’s your roommate?”
Vi nodded. “Thirteen years old and she’s better than me at everything.”
“Tell her I’m sorry. I abandoned her like everyone else. I made a lousy father.”
“Quiet. Lie down.”
“Get blood . . . sheets,” he said, but he didn’t resist. He put his head in her lap and closed his eyes.
“Kylar, I think I can help you,” Vi said, brushing his hair back. “But I need you to tell me what happened. Who did this to you?”
Her fingers were warm and gentle. It was an effort to speak. “Doing,” he said.
“Doing?”
“I’m being executed for murdering Queen Graesin. Logan’s the king. I did that, Elene. That’s worth my life, isn’t it?”
“Elene’s not here, Kylar. It’s me, Vi.”
Kylar winced as a muscle in his back spasmed. He drew quick little breaths.
Vi laid both of her hands on him and the cramps released. He heard her gasp and then warmth flooded through his body and a blessed absence of pain.
There was a long silence and Kylar began fading. Finally, Vi said, “But you’ll come back, right? After you die?”
“No one ever explained it. Live every life like it’s your last, huh?” He chuckled. He couldn’t help it. He felt warm all over. When he opened his eyes to look up at Vi, she wasn’t smiling. Her face was rigid with concentration and pain.
“Sleep,” she said. “I’ll help you all I can.”
56
Logan rose before dawn. He hadn’t slept. Sensing his mood, his guards hadn’t slept either, but if they felt as wretched as he did, they concealed it. “I’m going to see Kylar,” he told Kaldrosa. She nodded, having expected it. One of the things Logan was learning to hate about being king was that he couldn’t go anywhere without a retinue. Given that the last two Cenarian monarchs—or six, if he believed Duchess Kirena—had been assassinated, it was reasonable. Still, though Logan hated dragging along twelve people with him wherever he went, it wasn’t their fault, and it was beneath him to make their lives more difficult. So he simply had to act with more consideration.
Hot water arrived for his bath so promptly that Logan knew Kaldrosa must have told the kitchens hours ago that the king would require his bath early. It was a simple act, but illustrative. Many nobles ignored their servants as they ignored the ground beneath their feet. Logan’s father had pointed out that a noble interacted with his servants more than he did with even his own family. It paid to treat them well, but it was a still rare servant who so actively anticipated her master’s needs.
Logan stripped and bathed himself. As he scrubbed, he thought of how his apartments, though high above the Hole he’d lived in, had seen as much misery. Logan had seen the statues—hidden in a storeroom in the castle’s bowels—of the Godking’s women. They had all been young Cenarian noblewomen. Logan had known each by face and name and title. Every one of those women who had been so cruelly used, broken, murdered, and put on display. One of his first acts as king had been to return those girls to their families for burial. For some, there was no family left to return them to, so Logan had seen to those burials himself. He wished he could kill the dead Godking with his own hands, and the wheel would be too good for Trudana Jadwin, who had signed each statue as if they were pieces of her art. The room got brighter as Logan stood, dripping, naked, oblivious to the towel one of his bodyguards offered.
Jenine was, most likely, one of those women now. Even if he could get her back, she might well be bereft of reason. Regardless, she wouldn’t be the woman he had lost. He had to be prepared for that, had to be ready to love someone broken, wounded beyond healing. The fucking monsters. The room brightened with a white-green incandescence as Logan’s rage crested. He closed his eyes and exhaled. He mastered his outrage, his fury at his own ignorance, his impatience, and his hatred. He cooled them and fit them to his purpose. What would it profit to yell and smash things in his own castle while Jenine languished in Khalidor?